I was in the back of my mom’s blue ford when I found out Santa wasn’t real. I was in the third grade and had apparently done something to really piss off one of my friends during school that day; I can’t even remember what I did to upset her but as revenge she looked at me in anger and spitefully said, “Well guess what?… Santa isn’t real!!”, and ran off. I didn’t react much initially, I knew what she said was out of anger and I was old enough to know that sometimes when we’re angry we say stupid stuff. Plus, c’mon, it’s Santa! Santa not real? Puh. Ha. Suuure…  

Though I got through the rest of the day without much trouble, I wasn’t able to just brush off this new piece of information… What if she was right? What if Santa wasn’t real? I was a believer, but a truth-seeker, too, a curiosity driven soul from the go, so when a pillar of what I believed in was being challenged I couldn’t just act like nothing happened – I had to know. I wondered about everything even as a kid; I’d follow my mom around the house all day asking questions as she did chores: “Mom, what makes an itch?” … “Mom, why can we see the moon during the day?” … “Mom, is Santa real?”

My middle sister was in the front seat and though she didn’t say much at the time I found out later she was P-I-S-S-E-D at my mom for not lying. She liked to pick on me, but she loved me too and was protective; she wanted me to live in Santa Land for as long as I could. My mom, on the other hand, had always advocated for honesty, even when it came to the subject of Santa and her eight year old daughter. I knew by her pause that something was wrong. She chose her words carefully, looked at me through the rear view mirror and smiled as she softly spoke: “He’s real if you want him to be real hunny” – – – I.e… N-O. 

Surprisingly, I wasn’t too upset, mostly just disappointed and confused. Every other invisible being I had believed in up until then was now up for questioning: “Is the Easter Bunny real?”, I asked, “Is the tooth fairy real? Is God real?”

This new reality seemed to just bring more curiosity than anything – who else knew? I’d look at the other kids and wonder, silently try to figure out if they just weren’t saying anything like me, or if they were still believers. Someone may have popped my bubble, but I wasn’t about to pop someone else’s just to discover who was in the know. I kept quiet and made Santa cookies anyways. 

“It’s real if you want it to be”, my mama said. And isn’t that mostly true for anything we believe in? If we want it enough, if we believe it enough, we have the power to create our reality with our intentions, our hearts and our minds… What’s “real”, anyways? Real is relative. Real is choice.

May we choose wisely, little elves, may we choose wisely. 

   
Baby Geli and Mama Maureen, Christmas 1989